Thursday 1 May at 22:11 : Force India co-owner Vijay Mallya has angrily slammed the boss of the open wheeler series A1 GP for claiming his new formula one venture is sending the "wrong message" about India.

South African millionaire and A1 chairman Tony Teixeira said this week that his series' own Indian team is a winning image for the burgeoning country because it races at the front and boasts an Indian at the wheel.

"The Force India thing is a little bit negative in terms of youngsters and getting them to race if you are never going to win a race," he said.

Mallya, the flamboyant Indian billionaire who took over and renamed the flagging Spyker outfit ahead of 2008, reacted by way of a lengthy statement to the media on Thursday.

Amongst other things, he slammed A1 as "nothing more than a standard single seater series" that promotes "mediocrity".

"I will encourage world-class thinking and actions and through Force India demonstrate that an Indian team can compete at the very pinnacle of motorsport and not just in a comparatively mediocre single seater formula series," Mallya added.